22 June 2009

The Romance Of The Hotel

Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo has been gone now for almost as long as it existed (1923-1968), yet it looms large in Wrightian mythology. Finished just in time to weather the great Kanto earthquake, waters from the reflecting pool enabled firefighters to douse the fires that threatened it as a result of the quake. Wright encouraged the notion that his building was unscathed; in truth, his floating foundation was a conductor for seismic tremors that caused interior buckling.

The undated photograph of Wright, sitting in the hotel's lobby, shows a man whose confidence at least equaled his talents. A major collector of Japanese art, when Wright came to design a hotel funded by the Imperial family of Japan, he chose a style that could be described as Mayan Revival. Romantic, to be sure, but there is something subversively romantic in the very notion of a hotel, the mixing of an ever-changing cast of transients, meeting promiscuously, observed only by the group of strangers that constitute the hotel's staff.If there is not, somewhere, a book about the hotel as novel, it is merely an oversight. The Edwardian novelist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) wrote two novels, Grand Babylon Hotel(1902) and Imperial Hotel (1930), that are thought to be based on London's prestigious Savoy Hotel where Bennett often stayed after he became a successful writer and where an omelette named for him is still on the menu. Austrian novelist Vicki Baum (1888-1860) became one of the earliest of international bestselling novelists based on her 1929 Menschen im Hotel, which in turn became the film Grand Hotel (1932) starring John Barrymore and Greta Garbo. It is Garbo's character, the ballerina Grusinskaya, who utters the words often attributed to Garbo herself: "I want to be alone."

A good hotel novel is like a banquet, offering an array of stories to feast on and the genre is cross-cultural. The Bengali writer Mani Shankar Mukherjee's delightful 1962 novel Chowringee, only recently published in English, revolves around Shankar, a young man working at the reception desk of Calcutta's Hotel Shahajahan. A servant knows more about the masters than the masters know about the servants, as Shankar understands. "When I had checked in here, it was filled with known and familiar faces. Some left after breakfast; a few disappeared after lunch; others went away after tea. Now it was time for dinner, and no one was left ... I, the patriarch, seemed to have sat down at an empty table."At one point, Shankar assures the reader, "At least a dozen novels about hotels are written in this country every year." Who knows? There may be one about Wright's Imperial Hotel.

Images are from the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, with the exception of the frontispiece, from the Getty Archive.

These photos are fine fun. I didn't know Wright designed a hotel in Tokyo, and Mayan Revival seems an apt description of the style. I like the new photos on your sidebar. Lovely woman, mysterious kiosk!

Although the Imperial Hotel was a landmark of 20th century architecture, it didn't last long. When it closed, it was considered old-fashioned because it didn't have air conditioning and was described as being "dark and musty."I'm happy that the new look of the sidebar is pleasing. Brassai's photograph of the Morris column makes me want to do more with Brassai, the same for Florence Henri's self-portrait. The Theatre des Ombres poster is by Miguel Utrillo, father of the more famous Maurice Utrillo.

Maybe we could start a list, that could lead to a book. When Sebald writes about the marshy eastern shores of England, it reminds me of northern Massachusetts. And his books remind me of Georges Rodenbach's version of Bruges. There's an entire imaginary landscape that spirals out from hotels.

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Why The Blue Lantern ?

A blue-shaded lamp served as the starboard light for writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's imaginary journeys after she became too frail to leave her room. Her invitation, extended to all, was "Regarde!" Look, see, wonder, accept, live.

About Me

I have worked in public radio for 16 years now. My freelance writing began with political journalism for alternative publications, followed by an internship at American Demographics Magazine (Cornell University), and contributions to a literary journal in Pittsburgh, etc.
I studied classical piano for several years and was a jazz programmer for nine years. I have also done broadcasts for the blind and visually impaired.
Education: Syracuse University, & State University of New York.
NOTE: I have added an audio clip you can listen to (posted 03/17/14).